The Monster Is Not a Shinigami
by Convenient Alias
Summary: Johan finds a Death Note. And he knows just what to do with it-give it to a prospective serial killer he noticed a few years ago in Japan, a certain Light Yagami.


When Johan found the black notebook it was lying on the sidewalk outside the hotel where he was staying for the week. It was the early hours of the morning. No one had stepped outside yet except for him, which was lucky because it meant no one had stepped on the notebook and it was still clean.

It was also lucky because it meant that no one had found the notebook until now. Until Johan.

Johan picked up the notebook because he was curious about what would be inside it, not because he had any qualms about leaving it on the ground. The fact that some people felt littering to be a moral issue was rather peculiar in his mind, though it made more sense to him than their having a moral issue with murder. In any case, he was wondering whether it might be a diary. Diaries gave such insights into people's minds. Johan usually found it a lot easier to talk people into killing themselves on the rare occasions that he had read their diaries, although you had to take what you found in them with a grain of salt. Highschool girls weren't always as depressed as one reading their diaries would assume. This one said "Death Note" on the front, so Johan thought it would probably be very depressing indeed.

It wasn't a diary. There was no writing on the pages at all, only on the inside of the cover, and that in a weird scrawl that Johan had difficulty reading.

He squinted and read it all the same, still somewhat curious, especially since the rest of the notebook was just blank pages. No one ever bothered to write on the cover of the notebook and nowhere else. It was strange, and Johan liked strange. He knew how to work with strange.

"The human whose name is written in this note shall die."

"This note will not take effect unless the writer has the subject's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected."

"If the cause of death is written within 40 seconds of writing the subject's name, it will happen. "

"If the cause of death is not specified, the subject will simply die of a heart attack."

'After writing the cause of death, the details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds (400 seconds)."

Johan blinked, and then smiled.

If it was just a trick, a game someone had made up, he thought he would like to meet that person. He liked the way they thought.

If it wasn't a trick, then it was certainly interesting. He had no idea where it would have come from, but he was less inclined to be skeptical than most. Horrible things, he knew, existed in this world. Himself being one of them. This "Death Note" possibly being another.

Of course, the first step was to test it out and find out if it actually did work.

Johan was not especially picky about who he killed. He would as soon kill one person as another. Sometimes he tried to keep people alive for various schemes, but if they did end up being killed in the end he was never particularly upset. People died. It happened.

In this case, he decided to kill the receptionist of the hotel. Her name was on the little sign at her desk, and he could remember her face easily. He was good with faces.

He wrote the name in neat, precise writing. It was good to kill neatly. That was why when he shot people he preferred headshots.

He counted the forty seconds down in his head. Forty...thirty-nine...twenty-seven...twenty-two...fifteen...two...one...zero.

If the notebook was real, it was over.

If the notebook wasn't real, he didn't mind talking to a receptionist anyways.

He went inside. The woman was slumped over at the desk, her face and upper body on the table. He lifted the body slightly to check the eyes. Glazed over, frozen. Dead. Johan dropped the body back onto the desk and headed up to his room to pack his luggage.

He knew exactly what he wanted to do with this "Death Note", but it was going to take some travelling.

/.../.../

/.../.../

Two years ago, Johan had met a boy named Light Yagami when he had visited Japan. At the time he had been looking into Dr. Tenma's background (the man held a certain fascination to him) but he had kept his eyes open for such amusements as possible future serial killers. The boy held some promise, he had thought at the time. He had a certain view towards the world, a disgust for people who didn't live the way he thought they should. Johan could tell that Light Yagami could see what Johan did-human life wasn't particularly valuable. The difference was that Light thought only criminal life was worthless, whereas Johan found all life equally pointless. Even his own.

Light Yagami's philosophy on life, being nearly as enlightened as Johan's, was an excellent philosophy for a serial killer, albeit a self righteous one. The only thing Johan could see standing in his way was a sort of squeamishness he had noticed. Light liked things neat and proper. Killing a man with his bare hands would probably be impossible for him. If he stabbed someone, the blood. If he strangled someone, the groans and the flailing. If he shot someone...there were possibilities there but Johan thought the blood would still turn Light off.

Here, though, here was a bloodless method of killing that Light wouldn't have to even bear witness to. Johan felt that the possibilities of a Light Yagami with a Death Note were very interesting.

So he went to Japan (it cost money, but Johan was hardly short on that end) and then went to the Yagami household, where he was welcomed with great fervor by Sachiko, the only one home at when he arrived. When they had first met (at the same time that Johan and Light had first met) she had been impressed by his manners and, he suspected, his looks. Apparently the impression had lasted.

"Johan," she greeted him. "What are you doing in Japan this time?"

"I am here visiting friends," he told her. No need to get more specific than that. Technically it was true, though he did not really count the Yagamis as his friends. He did not really count anyone as his friend; even Roberto was just a tool.

"Well, come in," Sachiko said. He did so, bowing and taking off his shoes at the door. Japanese people were more formal than Germans. Johan rather liked them due to Dr. Tenma, though of course no one else was like Dr. Tenma, neither in Japan nor in Germany nor anywhere else.

Sachiko poured Johan some tea and brought him some food. They made small talk. Some of it was about Johan's activities in Germany, though that was mostly lies. Johan wasn't in college; he was travelling about Germany killing various people who knew his and Nina's identities, setting up money laundering businesses and manipulating serial killers, but he did not think that would sit as well with such a gentle woman.

Mostly he tried to keep the conversation to the subject of Light, his actual interest. Sachiko was glad to talk about him, very proud. She said Light was doing well at school and had not many friends, though, she mentioned, he had not yet brought home a girlfriend, which was a pity. Though she doubted that would last long with his looks and intelligence.

Johan could see her point, but he doubted Light would be bringing anyone home soon. He saw like Johan did, and there was no real point in having relationships with people you could easily see through, who had no value to you.

He kept that to himself.

Sayu, who got home before Light, was excited to see Johan as well. She blushed upon seeing him and then talked at high speed, asking when he had arrived and what he was doing in Japan. Once again, he deflected. It was easier with her. She was clearly attracted to him, and was only too willing to talk about herself instead.

As for Light, he arrived home slightly late-apparently he had stayed afterschool to talk to a teacher, even though he didn't actually need help. He was happy to see Johan, but not slavishly so, and maintained a calm and charming front. Light restrained his enthusiasm in all matters-outwardly, at least.

"May I talk to you in private?" Johan murmured in Light's ear as they sat talking with the rest of the family.

"Of course," Light muttered back.

And of course Light Yagami would never think it odd that someone would desire to speak to him and him alone. That was his arrogance. The same arrogance ensured that he would not think it odd that Johan had come to him, of all people, about the notebook. He would never suspect Johan's true motives.

Alone in Light's room, Johan looked at Light solemnly. Well. This was the face he used to mimic solemnity, and it usually worked, usually even made others more solemn themselves. Inside, he was grinning. "The other day, I came upon something peculiar. I thought it might be better in your hands than in mine."

Light frowned. He was always solemn, though, so Johan was not sure it was the effect of his face. "What is this peculiar thing?"

Johan put his hand in the small bag he was carrying around with him (something of a traveler's sack, really; he had seen Dr. Tenma use something similar a few times and decided he would get one himself) and drew out the black notebook. "Have a look at this. Read the inside cover."

And so Light did so.

When he was done, his eyes were wide, but he narrowed them again as he closed the book. "It could be a prank, Liebert-san."

"Look," Johan said, widening his own eyes so as to look more sincere. "I can not tell you where I got the notebook from, but it's genuine. Trust me. The rules are all true."

When Johan asked people to trust them, they trusted him. Light Yagami was a clever boy, true, but he was not immune to Johan's charm and especially not his eyes.

"I..." Light swallowed. He hadn't handed the notebook back to Johan even now, and his hands clenched around it. Johan smiled a little. The boy wanted it already, even if he didn't realize it. "You want to give this to me? Why?"

Johan put his hand out on top of Light's hands, pinning them to the notebook in what Light would probably take as a gesture of reassurance. "This notebook could be misused, as I'm sure you can imagine. It could be used for a personal vendetta if it fell into the wrong hands. Or almost as bad, it could end up not being used at all."

"How would that be bad?" Light said, staring straight into Johan's eyes. (And when people looked into Johan's eyes, that was it. Game over. No one could resist.)

"This notebook has a purpose," Johan said gravely. "I believe that. I believe that this notebook could be used as a tool of justice, in the right hands. Surely you agree with me...there are some people that deserve to die. There are some people that need to be killed."

Of course Light believed that. Johan had known that from their first meeting. Justice. That was Light's beacon, Light's ideal. Probably Light's father's fault, in part, that his son had become so obsessed with it. But Light had that tendency anyways. A vindictive streak, a need to prove himself better than anyone else, a need to be above...Johan could see them all in him.

"It's true," Light echoed. "Some people do deserve to die, Johan. Anyone with a brain can see that."

No. Only people with a twisted brain, a brain like Johan's or Light's, could see that. (Johan was trying very hard to show this fact to Dr. Tenma, but even though the man was very intelligent it still hadn't penetrated.) But Johan nodded sympathetically.

"I don't trust myself with it," Johan said. "When I think about my ethics, I have to see that they are not as strong as yours." He put a hand on Light's shoulder now. "I believe that in your hands this notebook can be used as it is meant to be used, Light. Please...can I trust you with this?"

Light was nodding slowly. His eyes were fixed on the notebook, so that he did not see the smile spreading across Johan's face, a satisfied smile that would not have fit in with the serene aura the young man usually projected.

"I...Can you tell me anymore about how it works?" Light asked.

"No more than that," Johan murmured. He didn't know anymore than was on the notebook, but there was no reason to tell Light that. "You're a clever boy. You'll figure it out." He turned to the door. "Your family will wonder what we're doing in here if we stay any longer. Let's go back in."

For such an intelligent boy, Light Yagami was surprisingly gullible. But then, it was not so much that Johan was deceiving Light. Light would have seen such a use for the Death Note by himself, no doubt. He was merely enabling the boy to do as he wished. It was one of Johan's favorite hobbies, enabling serial killers.

Johan stayed only another hour or so before leaving. Light tried to delay him, probably wanting to talk more, but Johan ignored him. The interlude in Japan had been interesting, but he had things to do in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, loose threads to follow and cut, and a doctor to talk into killing him. He had no time to extend his visit.

In the weeks and months to come though, he was not surprised to read in the papers about the rise of heart attacks in criminals. Light Yagami was such a good boy, after all.

/.../.../

AN: So I was wondering what would happen if Johan got his hands on a Death Note. Certainly nothing good. But in some cases the worst scenario is canon, and he couldn't do much worse than give it to Light. Besides, he already has his own methods of killing people.

Credit to my beta for this story, SomeDamnAuthor. Oh, and reviews are always appreciated.


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